The conflict and gunfire in Syria has been covered
heavily in the news for weeks by countries all over the world and has repeatedly
appeared on U.S. headlines as new turmoil occurs. The latest news was centered
around the four-day Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Recognizing the importance of
religion in the country and among the people, the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA)
and the President Bashar al-Assad and his government agreed to a ceasefire
in Syria. Both cnn.com (United States) and Al Jazeera.com (published from the
country Qatar, which lies near the Persian Gulf) covered the truce as well as
its failure. Gunfire, protests, and car bombs erupted as early as this morning
(October 26), just as Eid al-Adha started.
Coverage by CNN is informational, but gets its facts
secondhand.
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| Ceasefire is violated in Syria after fighting erupted Friday morning. | (RT.com) |
CNN’s news article entitled “Is this a truce? Within hours, bullets again flying in Syria” gives the latest information on what is going on in Syria although it lacks quotes from witnesses or government officials in the area and direct information. Though some quotes are present, they are often paraphrased and could have been inserted from another previous article. Because of the lack of this inside information, CNN set up its article less as a breaking news story and more in my opinion as an in depth article of the events that occurred with more details that create shock value and human interest. Throughout the story, CNN uses citations such as “Syrian media reported….”, “rebel fighters told Al Jazeera news agency that…”, and “CNN can’t confirm reports of violence…” This could be due to the lack of time available to the writers to gather information before releasing the story and the restricted access to the Syrian government for an American journalist. So the article created several bullet points to highlight the irony of what has happened after the truce including “At least 30 people were reportedly killed across Syria Friday.” With the shocking details on the death toll and conflicts that arose today as well as the beginning of the story including information on a car bomb in Damascus that killed several people, most of whom were children, exemplifies CNN’s attempt to capture the audience using human interest and tragedy. This will most likely be effective as the audience continues to check back in for more information and to find out more about the people of Syria.
Al Jazeera gives the information on Syria’s events quickly and efficiently.
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| Protesters chant against the government. (guardian.co.uk) |
5 comments:
After reading both articles and the blog posted by Janey, it is clear that news articles on the same story can be written very differently. Although, both CNN and Al Jazeera covered the recent protesting, killings, etc. in Syria, they are not similar written stories. I agree that the CNN news article is much longer and dragged on compared to the Al Jazeera article. I also feel that the CNN article is written with more emotion and dramatic emphasis, for example the writer states, “Mangled metal, puffs of smoke, chunks of concrete, blood and a crowd of people walking around dazed, shocked and crying. That was the scene on a Damascus street Friday after a car bomb exploded and killed several people” (Fantz, Abdelaziz). As for the Al Jazeera article I believe it stated facts and was kept short and sweet. I also feel that the article was not nearly as dramatic as CNN. For example, “the ceasefire has collapsed in several regions of Syria but there is stillless violence and fewer victims than usual” http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/201210268275584156.html). Al Jazeera is not making the scene sound worse then it actually was.
Similarly, I read a NYtimes article titled, “Afghan Suicide Bomber Kills Dozens of Worshipers” and a France24 article “Suicide bomb kills dozens at Afghan mosque” and both articles were also written differently. The US news article appeared to be more dramatic and detailed compared to the France article. The NYtimes article quoted things like, “the hospital is overwhelmed by dead and wounded bodies; all off-duty doctors were called in” (Rubin, Rahimi). The France24 article is much shorter and resembles the style of the Al Jazeera article.
Janey made good use of two different sources that cover similar topics of the violence occurring in Syria. After I read the two articles linked within the post, I agree with Janey that the way different countries cover news differ. CNN, an American news organization, did focus on the shocking adjectives and adverbs. I believe that is because Americans, as a whole, prefer the dramatic, movie-like news that keeps the audience on their toes. CNN also included a video in the article that enhances the dramatic effect. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera provides a non-violent photo, which gives the article a less tense feeling. In agreement with Janey, Al Jazeera keeps the to the facts and does not give a dramatic feeling to the story. In my research, I compared the stories in both websites to a British website, TheGuardian. In TheGuardian's article titled, “Syrian rebels and Kurdish militiamen clash in Aleppo,” it combines the best attributes of both websites—CNN and Al Jazeera—into its article. TheGuardian incorporates the violence into the article with a picture of a man firing a gun, while sticking to the facts and incorporating direct quotes. I personally find TheGuardian as my preference for an independent, unbiased news source.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/27/syrian-rebels-kurds-clash-aleppo
It is interesting to compare two stories concerning the same issue, but written from two completely different cultural perspectives. The fact that CNN is forced to rely on "shock" and dramatized imagery to effectively communicate its story is truly revealing of American culture. I think that this sensationalist approach to news reporting is wrong, however it probably reaches more people than strict objective reporting would. Additionally, it seems that CNN has a history of reporting trivial stories much more frequently than foreign media companies. This website, bluntly titled "http://wtfcnn.com" was created to compare CNN news stories to similar stories covered by a range of other media sources from other countries, including Quatar, Canada, and the UK. While the website is clearly biased, this comparison is done entirely objectively, and just by reading the stories side by side, one can get a sense of the difference in cultural values. CNN is clearly catering to the appeal of the masses, by focusing on stories that seem interesting rather than those of actual importance, and by decorating their stories with dramatic, detailed language.
When a big story is published, most of the time you will be able to find that same exact story reported on by hundreds of different news agencies or forums. Some focus on only the facts, including only the who, what, where, when and why for the story to avoid biased opinions. At the same time, many websites post the same story but have more of an opinionated take on it. In this case, both sites include factual information, but how they get it is different. CNN gets its information second hand. I agree that neither of the cites contain any biased information. Both are reporting only information. I noticed that al Jazeera has a little bit more information too.
After reading each article, I also agree that both CNN and Al Jazeera have two completely different approaches regarding the coverage of the recent tragedy that occurred in Syria. Even though the articles focus on the same topic, the content in each do not share much in common. A majority of the CNN article targets the car bomb that went off in Damascus. On the contrary, the Al Jazeera article gives a broader overview of the events in Syria, and doesn’t even acknowledge the car bomb when Damascus is briefly mentioned. Like Janey said, CNN provides more detail for its readers while Al Jazeera is much more concise and direct. Although both articles include valuable information and interesting quotes, I trust Al Jazeera more since the author of the CNN article includes that they can’t verify certain information because “Syria has restricted the access of international journalists in the country.” Reuters’s approach to reporting the events in Syria is basically a combination of the approaches from the other two articles. A detailed, informative description of the car bombing is included as well as an overview of everything else happening in Syria. I believe that the best way to gain good insight on current events is to read articles from multiple sources because they may not all contain the exact same facts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/26/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE88J0X720121026
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